Heavy downpours, gale force winds of 150 kph and storm surges up to five metres are predicted to batter the east coast

Evacuations of low-lying areas on the east coast of the North Island are under way, with power outages, fallen trees and roofs lifting off homes possible, according to the MetService, as well as widespread and “significant” flooding across the entire North Island.

A month’s worth of rain is expected to fall in the space of a day on the east coast, with the ground already sodden and covered in up to a metre of mud and debris.

Amazing nobody is here commenting, spoke to a mate in Wellington, the collective country must have kicked a black cat, dog or something. No real summer, rain, wind, cold, bloody big earthquakes, geez, no wonder ABS has kiwis moving in. Interesting next 24hrs.

Amazing nobody is here commenting, spoke to a mate in Wellington, the collective country must have kicked a black cat, dog or something. No real summer, rain, wind, cold, bloody big earthquakes, geez, no wonder ABS has kiwis moving in. Interesting next 24hrs.

I was wondering too. Maybe they're in a mad scramble to cope with it? while still recovering from ex-Debbie.

It intrigues me that more of the "avid" cyclone watchers for Au don't follow the ex-TC further than our own shores. I find them fascinating, especially when they arrive in NZ still capable of major damage.

Coming in rather late on this - I'm currently travelling in the North Island of NZ, and arrived on the evening before TC Cook. It tracked on a path 50-100km further east than originally forecast, which turned out to be critical as it took Auckland (which ended up getting no significant winds at all) out of the firing line, with the main focus of severe winds being the eastern Bay of Plenty (209 km/h at White Island) through to Hawke's Bay. Rainfall totals with Cook were also generally not extreme as the system moved quickly - the remnants of Debbie were a far more productive rain producer.

The two systems came on top of a very wet March in places, and there is a lot of water around, and numerous small landslides ('slips' in local parlance). To give one example, Rotorua has had 445mm in the last 30 days.

The first real polar blast of the year here in the South Island due overnight Tuesday through to Thursday, some impressive numbers being grown up by a local forecaster - time to start getting excited for some white stuff!!

Snow Forecast for Canterbury High Country and Plains:

Expect a very cold southwesterly change to spread north late in the day on Tuesday with a period of rain and snow initially lowering to 200m. From Tuesday night through Wednesday and into Thursday morning expect frequent showers with snow to near sea level at times. Expect 20-30cm accumulating above 200m, with 30-50cm possible above 400m. A few cm may accumulate on the ground near sea level at times in heavy showers.

It sure does look cold with 850hpa temps around the -6 to -7 mark for the eastern South Island. Looks like the change is coming from the south maybe even a bit SE.

Pete, is it unusual to get very cold changes from the S to SE in NZ? Just wondering because I would have expected that the latitude would only really allow a pretty constant westerly air stream in winter. But I don't know much about New Zealand's weather.

Hey Wave Rider, yes it is unusual but certainly not unheard of, introduce the influence of a low pressure system situated to the east of the south island (or even north in this case as per the attached picture) and it can change the windflow from a SW to a southerly or even SE. You will never get anymore then 10-15cm of snow in a SW airflow, all the huge snowfalls of the past 30 years over 30cm have all come from a more SE direction.

Sleet now predicted for Christchurch with now in the hill suburbs, places like Hanmer Springs, Methven are all now expecting between 30-50cm. I;m headed up to Hanmer Springs myself tomorrow so will try and take some pictures and post it on here when I get back!

Thanks for the answer and associated pic. That would make sense that your area could only get heavy snow in these S/SE as the wind is coming off the ocean. Same thing happens in the eastern ranges here. Places like Bowral and Moss Vale etc generally only see snow in a setup like what you're getting.

Yes it had been a fair bit less then anticipated, the moisture levels were down so we probably received between 15-20cm in total which is around a third of what was expected - oh well it is still beautiful up here!!